Learn English – How much use did the word ‘delete’ get before the technological boom

etymology

For as long as I can remember, I've only used the word 'delete' in a technological context. I'm fairly certain, most kids–or the generation before them–know exactly what the word means.

Did this word get much use in other literary works?

Best Answer

Etymology online offers the following:

delete

late 15c., "destroy, eradicate," from L. deletus, pp. of delere "destroy, blot out, efface," from delevi, originally perf. tense of delinere "to daub, erase by smudging" (as of the wax on a writing table), from de- "from, away" (see de-) + linere "to smear, wipe" (see lime (1)). In English, specifically of written matter, from c.1600. Related: Deleted; deleting.

(and related)

dele

typographer's direction to blot out a letter, from L. dele, imperative singular of delere (see delete).

Related Solutions

Learn English – Usage evolution of “indubitably”

There is actually a subtle distinction between the two words: undoubtedly means "not doubted" whereas indubitably means "beyond doubt" i.e. that which cannot be doubted as opposed that which is not doubted.

This answer serves to illustrate, in part, the more general question you've raised. There is a phenomenal plethora of synonyms in English (Hungarian takes the trophy, though) and it is largely due to the language's mongrel heritage, in turn caused by successive waves of conquerors and invaders putting down roots in the land. We have roots in a number of Celtic, West Germanic and Romance languages, and so an extraordinary arsenal of vocabulary has been available to us. As a result, we have been able to use these synonyms to inject the language with subtler shades of meaning than would be afforded by a single linguistic root. Why this quality is more apparent in English than in some other languages is not entirely clear (we're certainly not unique in our mongrel heritage) and the debate continues among linguists today.

Regarding "pretentious" synonyms, I believe this has its origins in the days when French was the language of the court and Latin that of the clergy, while common old guttural, germanic, dialectic English was the language of the peasantry. The association of Romance languages (and therefore longer words of latin-style inflection) with the higher classes of society has stuck with us, and the hangover of this can be observed, for example, in the extensive use of French in "legalese."

Learn English – How does the “be-” prefix change the words to which it is applied? How did it come about

The formation of verbs in many Indo-European languages follows the following rule

prefix + root verb

Examples

English incoming, outgoing
German einkommen (income), ausgehend (outgoing)
Latin inīre (to come in), exīre (to go out)

German for instance still follows this system very closely and has a small number of ubiquitous prefixes which fall into two categories:

The so called separable¹ prefixes (ab- "off", an- "on", auf- "up", aus- "out", ein- "in" etc.), which indicate an ongoing action, a movement or a direction.
And the so called inseparable¹ prefixes: (be- (be), ent-, er-, ge-, mis-, ver- and zer-) which indicate a completed action (differentiated according to the type of outcome: neutral, successful, failed...).

The English be- prefix is clearly the same as the German be- and is therefore a remnant of its Germanic ascendancy.

It is actually of the same origin as the verb to be which linguists have traced back, through Proto Germanic to the reconstituted Proto Indo European root *bheu-, *bhu- meaning "to grow", "to turn into" or " to become"².

Ultimately most of the English words starting with a "be-" can be traced back to this notion of "to turn into"³.

The general form is:
be + [quality]
and the corresponding meaning is:
to turn into + [quality].

Let's illustrate all this theory with a few simple examples:

to befriend somebody => to turn somebody into a friend.
to beget something => to make something supplied, produced.
to besot somebody (besotted) => to turn somebody into a sot (a dummy).
to bewitch somebody => to make somebody possessed by a spell.
to bedazzle somebody => to make him confused (see also bewilder)

These ones are slightly more difficult:

to behold: the original meaning of to hold (OE healdan, German halten) is to keep. But to keep by actually keeping an eye on, to watch over. => So to behold is to make something watched.
to bedevil someone => to make someone feel like in Hell.
to believe something => to make something dear (loved). See also German glauben (ge + lieben) as well as Dutch geloven.
to belong to someone => to make something go along with somebody.

As usual there are a few exceptions or look-alikes that don't fit into the template

to behead => sometimes the "be" is categorised as privative but you can also interpret it as "turn into a head (and not much else)". The question being what do you sever: the head or the body ?
between. It is not a verb. The "be" is akin to "by" and the "tween" part is akin to "two".

But their existence is not sufficient to belie the general theory outlined above.

Note 1:
^{German verbs starting with a separable prefix form their past participle by inserting a "ge-" between the prefix and the root.
For instance:

Infinitve aus-gehen "to go out" => past participle aus-ge-gangen "gone out".}
^{The meaning of "ge-" in this role is actually the same as the meaning of "ge-" taken as an inseparable prefix: it indicates that an action is complete.

Inseparable prefixes already have the meaning of a completed action. Therefore the past participle form of the verbs starting with this kind of prefixes does not need an additional "ge-".}
Note 2: ^{The Proto Indo European root *bheu-, *bhu- also enters into the composition of the German equivalent of to be:

- ich bin "I am" and

- du bist "you are".}
Note 3:
^{In German the past participle of the verb kennen (to know) is gekannt (known) but it has a close relative in bekannt, which also means "known".

However, bekannt is the past participle of "bekennen" which means "to confess, to acknowledge" - that is to say "to turn into a known thing" whereas the simple un-prefixed kennen verb means "to known".

In English, there used to be a similar word beknown and we still use unbeknownst (see German unbekannt - credits @OregonGhost's comment).}